The Access Bank Charity Shield was inaugurated by Fifth Chukker Polo and Country Club in 2003 as a fund raising platform to support local charity organisations.

Since 2006, however, this effort has been exclusively geared towards UNICEF’s intervention projects for orphans and vulnerable children. The event was also so named in honour of then Emir of Katsina and Life president of the Nigerian Polo Association Alh. Muhammadu Kabir Usman, whose family has for almost a hundred years remained the custodian of the nations’s rich polo heritage.

Eight years on, the Emir of Katsina Charity Shield has clearly become one of the biggest and most attractive international sporting events in the country, regularly drawing some of the most accomplished players in world, royalty and heavy hitters in politics and industry.